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fictionjunky's review against another edition
5.0
What can I say? Read her. It will change your life.
amrungwaew's review against another edition
5.0
Akhmatova crafted such beautiful, tender, ruthless poetry. More people need to read her story and her poetry (and the Silver Age in general).
shaymcb's review against another edition
4.0
actually i read boris ryzhy’s first collection i vso takoye… but it’s not on here and i’ve also read this collection and it’s very good
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
3.0
Я спросила: «Чего ты хочешь?»Everything Anna Akhmatova wrote was acerbic and visceral. My review is of the translation.
Он сказал: «Быть с тобой в аду».из ГОСТЬ
I had a Russian edition alongside Judith Hemschemeyer's English translation the first time I read this, and used it to teach myself Russian. This edition is revised, featuring expanded annotations on the poems done by Roberta Reeder, as well as several more poems (bringing the total to over 800) and 100 photographs of Akhmatova and relevant locations or objects. There's also a historical chronology and index of first lines (often overlapping with the poems' titles). The major drawback of this particular compilation is that is isn't bilingual, although most of Akhmatova's poems can be found online in the original Russian.
Akhmatova's first husband was assassinated by Lenin's secret police; her second husband (both husbands were named Nikolay, interestingly) and her son were both sent to Stalin's Gulags. Akhmatova wove this unimaginable tragedy and pain into her writing, and produced some of the greatest Russian poetry of the 20th century. Her depictions of suffering and endurance rival Dostoyevsky's or Gogol's.
Her chosen sobriquet has an interesting backstory:
The pen name came from family lore that one of her maternal ancestors was Khan Akhmat, the last Tatar chieftain to accept tribute from Russian rulers. According to the family mythology, Akhmat—who was assassinated in his tent in 1481—belonged to the royal bloodline of Genghis Khan.
jeninmotion's review against another edition
3.0
How do you review a collection this huge? It was honestly like reading the dictionary in some ways, especially for someone like me who has only a glancing familiarity with Russian literature and just enough 20th century history to get the references. Many, many of the poems are amazing and "5 stars" and so on, but reading the whole thing ended up being a slog, which I think is ultimately a problem with any "complete poems" when you try to read it end-to-end. On the other hand, if you're like "okay, I want to read these 6 Akhmatova poems/one of her published books of poetry/etc" this is a vital, 5 star book. So 3 stars for the experience with the caveat that a different experience would easily be 5 stars and this in no way represents the poet's quality.
horseknickers's review
5.0
I'm very selective with poetry. These poems are dark, sad and mournful ... but beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
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